Wii U System to see $300 Price Tag

The following information comes from a source supposedly closely involved with manufacturing and distributing Nintendo products...

- total cost of materials to manufacture the Wii U console (includes cost of controller) is estimated to be around $180
- controller’s total bill of materials and components costs no more than $50
- Wii U will be no less than $300 when it launches

“Cutting production costs to maximize profits is Nintendo’s main concern with the Wii U. They are cutting costs in the Wii U’s hardware to build back confidence in investors. Nintendo wants investors to view Wii U as a less risky proposition.”

- NFC capabilities for each new Wii U controller costs no more than $5 to implement
- price of NFC implementation in mobile devices is expected to fall below $1 in the near future

“NFC capabilities are a drop in the bucket for Nintendo. As NFC becomes more mainstream in mobile devices, the price for NFC implementation will rapidly decline. Nintendo is jumping on NFC because of a projected cost decline in the technology.

The cameras in the Wii U controller are an estimated manufacturing cost of $6. They are slightly better quality than the 3DS and DSi cameras. The touch screen has a manufacturing cost estimated at $14.”

- Microsoft’s Kinect cost $56 after tearing it apart
- Wii U controller’s cost of materials would be slightly less than what Kinect cost

“Nintendo chose an economical GPU and CPU that could keep up with the performance of today’s current consoles, but keep hardware costs down to maximize profits. Nintendo got a bargain price on the custom GPU and CPU that the Wii U uses. There is a bigger focus on downloadable content, applications, video content, digital distribution, and services to create a stream of revenue. Investors will be ecstatic with the news.”